“So it’s a deal? You win, I give you my blood. I win, you give me freedom—mine, and every bride from hereon out.”
“Deal. I do so love a wager.”
He lifts a hand, and the world around us shifts. The shadows stretch and lengthen. A distant horn sounds—the Hunt has begun. The brides scatter.
“No!” I cry, stepping in one direction. “Wait!” Then another. I don’t know who to follow. “I can help you.”
But no bride stops. I had hoped to at least flag one down—to join forces. But each has fled as if Kasaros himself were chasing their tail. My hesitation costs me. Within seconds, I find myself alone, wondering if I know what I’m doing.
“Run along, little rose.”Kasaro’s velvet whisper slides into my mind.“Let’s see how far you get.”
Chapter 3
Drayven
To catch a bride, become the shadow she cannot outrun.”
—THE HUNTSMAN’S CREED
Florienne stands beneath the blood moon, spine straight, chin lifted as she speaks. She doesn’t bow. She doesn’t cower. I always knew she was brave to a fault, but this is something else. This is dangerous.
Kasaros watches her like she’s the most entertaining thing he’s seen in centuries.
I watch him.
I should be moving. Should be gone by now, but here I am lurking in the darkness behind a column inside the forbidden nemeton because he fucked up. He broke his promise, and now everything has changed.
The shadows stretch long, curling around the edges of high stone walls and thorn-choked paths. The scent of damp earth and old blood lingers in my nose. This place is the beginning ofthe end for so many women over the centuries. The sights it’s seen. The horrors.
My hand tightens around my scimitar’s hilt at my hip. The hidden mark on my chest sears hotter, pulsing like a second heartbeat every time I think of him, reminding me I am his servant, his prisoner. Owned.
“Why crush the rose?”I asked him once, long, long ago.
“Because there is no room for hope.”
Yet here she is, still fighting. Still unbroken. She defies him right until the moment he leaves. Chaos returns to the nemeton. A horn sounds. The Hunt is nigh.
My breath shudders out and hits the mask, leaving a bitter taste in my mouth. Hood up, I stalk deeper into the Labyrinth for privacy. I drop my weapons and lower my hood when I find a forgotten grotto. Once, wildlife flourished within these cold ruins. All that remains are bones, dead roots, and insects scuttling away. I lower the mask next and inhale, but it hurts. It hurts because it’s the same air she breathes, and she’ll never know I’m this close.
With a snarl, I open my hunting jacket and lift my undershirt to reveal my bare torso. I drag the blade’s curved edge across my skin just deep enough. The brand Kasaros burned into me years ago drinks greedily from the offering—blood seeps and steams in the cold air. The shadows respond first, stretching and thickening. Then?—
Laughter.
It slithers in, low and velvet-soft, curling against my skull like fingers in my hair.
“I do enjoy it when you bleed for me, puppet.”
I clench my jaw. Pain sharpens me, but his disembodied voice dulls everything else. The blade’s hilt is still warm in my grip, slick with red.
“Show yourself.” Wind around my face, but no Trickster God. “Or are you a coward?”
The God materializes in a languid sprawl atop a ruined column, legs crossed at the knee, hands tucked into the pockets of his perfectly tailored black breeches. He is everything elegant and cruel, a man who belongs in grand ballrooms and execution chambers alike. His midnight cravat is loosened just enough to feign carelessness. His rings gleam like fresh-cut obsidian. Even the disheveled hair looks like a woman has run her fingers through it in the throes of passion.
Lies.
All of it.
“You broke the deal, Kasaros.”
